Pages

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Birthmarks and reincarnation

One primary putative evidence for reincarnation is the recurrence of birthmarks that correspond to the decedent. For instance, Ian Stevenson, a leading apologist for reincarnation, stresses that line of evidence. With that in mind, here's an interesting story:

Meet baby MilliAnna, the fourth generation of women in her family to be born with a wild streak of white hair.

The 18-month-old, from Ridgeland, South Carolina, was born with a unique birthmark that leaves a patch of her dark hair bleached white — just like the previous three generations of women that came before her.

The trait was passed down from her great-grandmother Jaonne, 59, to her grandmother Jennifer, 41, to her mother Brianna, 23. Now, MilliAnna is the latest to be born with the extraordinary hair.

By reincarnationist logic, this means the same decedent simultaneously transmigrated in four living individuals! How one person can be reincarnated as four coexistent people poses quite a metaphysical conundrum for personal identity. Put another way, this goes to show that sharing a distinctive birthmark is unreliable evidence for metempsychosis.

Indeed, I daresay it's statistically inevitable that in a world with billions of humans, some unrelated people will share common birthmarks. That's a natural, predictable coincidence.

12 comments:

Haven't these people ever heard of genetics? Granted, scientific discovery has epistemological limitations. However, it's useful within those limitations. Indeed, reincarnation has a far greater limitation in that it is contrary to God's special revelation. But even if you don't have faith enough for revelation, their argument relies on scientific evidentialism and a genetic explanation for the evidence is exceptionally more likely than a reincarnation explanation.

By the way, that last observation I just made should give some pause to the kinds of arguments that many of our fellow Christians offer.

I can rightly be accused of too often appealing to demonic activity. Nevertheless, this case of a boy who knows things about a deceased person can readily be explained by demonic influence. I'm not saying that that's necessarily the correct interpretation. Yet I can imagine how a demon who was attached to the dead person when he was alive could later attach itself to a child who's already fascinated by planes and had the same name. Then the demon could implant thoughts into the child's mind without the child realizing it. After a while the child could actually believe such thoughts are his own and that he's the same person who experienced the previous life.

There are levels to how much and how deep demons can consciously and subconsciously affect our thinking. Children not protected by the prayers of Christian parents are susceptible to demonic attack. I wouldn't be surprised if some instances of invisible childhood friends and of Boogeymen are demonically related.

There's a lot the video doesn't say. When did he go to the flight museum? Was it before his "memories" or after? The reason I ask is that musems like that often have accounts, even in video form, of the kinds of things that James "remembers". I can see him standing there hearing the name of a pilot that has his name and being taken by the account, even to seeing the photo of the pilot and his buddies. One good video to kick off a fascination can lead to quickly absorbing all kinds of information. You can see the kid has models of aircraft as well as being steeped in dogfight video games. I can see his dreams being filled with that material as well as creating nightmares of battles gone ill. The only problem is the YouTube video here doesn't give enough information to make this kind of determination.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The boy in the video did not claim to interact or see any ghosts. He reportedly went to a military reunion and recognized people he had never met before (whom the dead man had served with in the military). I don't know how the reality of ghosts would explain that.

I was making a general observation about "cases where younger children can reportedly identify or recognize people they have never met before."

That's a general statement. It's not bound up with the particulars of a military reunion.

You also need to explain how you think this particular case is relevant to evidence for reincarnation. At best, that would only make sense if the boy and the people he met knew each other in a past life, were simultaneously reincarnated, and simultaneously at the military reunion.

I was generalizing from the video example. It is relevant to the evidence for reincarnation in that the boy is supposedly the reincarnation of a man who died in action in WW2. The men that the boy met at the military reunion had not died yet and also served in WW2 with the man who died (apparently they knew him while in the service). When the boy met the men at the reunion (the boy was invited because he was telling stories about the particular military boat they served on), he reportedly knew who they were. For what it is worth, I'm not persuaded that reincarnation is true; I just find this particular case to be perplexing.

Small Potato, I'm not even sure why the first or most likely interpretation or explanation is reincarnation. Why not some other explanation like subconscious psychic ability? Or other non-Christian explanations like subconscious access to the "Akashic records". Or some kind of pantheistic/monistic explanation whereby all of reality is connected or "one" in such a way that the memories or experiences of other people in the past can be unconsciously or subconsciously accessed apart from reincarnation. From a non-Christian perspective these other options may be just as likely or possible, if not more so, than reincarnation. More so because reincarnation might seem to involve more problems in terms or explaining the mechanics and ontology of the transmigration of a soul. Reincarnation might be less parsimonious because it involves the concept of an afterlife (and "before lives" subsequent to the first life). Whereas the others I've proposed don't require before and after lives.

The idea of reincarnation usually (not always) assumes the reality of the supernatural (e.g. the existence of immaterial souls). The alternatives I presented don't necessarily require a supernatural and so may be more parsimonious (i.e. better follows Occam's razor). For example, someone could appeal to quantum entanglement (or some other scientific and naturalistic theory) to explain the retrieval of such memories and experiences. They could claim that it scientifically explains the Akashic records. Or the appeal to pantheism/monism might find its scientific explanation in the "block universe" theory (e.g. Minkowski's). Of course, I'm assuming a general non-Christian epistemology in all of this. I don't really reason this way as a Christian, but we're exploring possible non-Christian worldviews internally and externally between non-Christian worldviews.

Good point. However, I think Ian Stevenson's point wasn't that all birthmarks are evidence of reincarnation, but only the cases in which those birthmarks are accompanied with other data, such as the child remembering a past life.

What is the alternative explanation to the stories of children remembering pasts lives including where they lived and the people they knew by name?

i) For starters, you'd have to establish that those are veridical accounts. Is this true information? Is it something they weren't in a position to learn about by natural means (e.g. being coached by adults)?

ii) Assuming that's the case, what about telepathic contact with the dead?